Simpson Testifies, Portraying Himself as a Loving Husband

By B. DRUMMOND AYRES Jr.

Published: January 11, 1997

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Jan. 10—
With the end of his civil wrongful-death trial drawing near, O. J. Simpson took the stand this afternoon and for several hours, gently nudged along by his lawyers, painted a verbal picture of himself as a loving husband, father and all-round good guy who could not have fatally slashed his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald L. Goldman.

Only once, Mr. Simpson insisted, had he physically harmed Mrs. Simpson -- and then not with his fists but in wrestling her out of his locked bedroom after she had somehow entered, angry, at the end of a New Year's Eve party. .

What was more, he went on, the next morning, Jan. 1, 1989, he was so ''disappointed'' in himself for having manhandled her -- in an incident that the police subsequently investigated -- that he had his lawyer draw up a document that would punish him ''to the tune of millions of dollars'' should there ever be another such incident.

There never was one, he declared, but he conceded that once they had had an argument in which he kicked in a door, and that on another occasion they had exchanged words and he had, somewhat playfully, slightly cracked the window on her Mercedes convertible with a baseball bat he said he was toying with.

''We were very much in love,'' Mr. Simpson said at one point in describing his marriage under friendly -- the legal term is ''rehabilitative'' -- questioning by his lead lawyer, Robert Baker, who was seeking today to end the defense's case with the best possible image of his client fixed in the jury's mind.

Mr. Simpson, who earlier in the trial spent almost three days on the stand going over much the same testimonial territory, will probably testify for two days this time, with his next appearance on Monday.

At that time, he will probably face intense cross-examination by the plaintiffs' lawyers, who represent the families of Mrs. Simpson and Mr. Goldman and who will be eager to leave the jury with the worst possible picture of the former football star and entertainment personality.

Early in today's questioning, Mr. Simpson recalled how he had risen from a young life of poverty in public housing in San Francisco to become a football hero and later had met and fallen in love with the future Mrs. Simpson when she was only 18, tall, blond and beautiful. In the early days of their marriage, he said, the two had happily traveled the world. They lived the good life, he said, in various houses and apartments they owned -- entertaining friends and relatives almost constantly, playing tennis together, golfing and tooling about in big, fast cars.

''It was a good relationship,'' he said. ''We were very much in love.''

But in the end, Mr. Simpson said, the once-perfect marriage began to fail. There were periodic arguments, he said, including the one that ended with Mrs. Simpson black and blue from wrestling with him. Divorce followed. After that, he said, a bad situation was made worse when his former wife began to associate with drug users and prostitutes.

That deeply worried him, he said, and, concerned for both her and their two children, he said he once confronted her and asked, angrily, ''What the hell are you doing with hookers?''

Still, he insisted, he had never hit or hurt his wife in any way, other than in the one incident in 1989. And Mr. Baker, at every turn, tried to elicit from him precise words to support that contention.

''From 1977 to the present, did you love Nicole Brown Simpson?'' Mr. Baker asked his client in the final minute of questioning before adjournment.

''Yes, very much so,'' Mr. Simpson responded.

''And you never harmed her or touched her physically after Jan. 1, 1989?'' Mr. Baker continued.

''Yeah, that's absolutely correct,'' Mr. Simpson replied.

The thrust of what Mr. Simpson had to say today about himself and his former wife had been heard before in both the current trial and in the criminal trial last year in which, after nine riveting months of testimony before a worldwide television audience, the jury acquitted him of murder charges.

In this trial, the plaintiffs contend that whatever the outcome of the first trial, Mr. Simpson did, in fact, commit the killings and therefore should be forced to pay a yet-unspecified amount in recompense.

Mrs. Simpson and Mr. Goldman were killed on June 12, 1994.

The second trial has been running for the better part of four months and should go to the jury in another week or so.

Unlike the first trial, in which the standard for conviction was a unanimous judgment of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, in this trial, only nine jurors must find for the plaintiffs, and they need conclude only that in all likelihood Mr. Simpson committed the murders.